A hard drive is a device used to store large amounts of data and is a common component of a desktop or notebook computer. However, hard drives are not solid state devices, and thus have mechanical components that are susceptible to failure.
Because of this, external (meaning external to the desktop or notebook) backup hard drives are often used by computer users to periodically “back up” the data stored on the hard drives in the desktop or notebook computer. Vendors such as Iomega and Western Digital manufacture high capacity external hard drives which can be used for back up purposes.
However, when a new external hard drive (such as an external hard drive) of a computer system is connected to a computer, the operating system of the computer generally issues a request asking the user of the external hard drive to install the appropriate device driver (or client software) for the external hard drive. The user then inserts a disk having stored thereon the device driver or client software. The computer operating system will then automatically execute an auto-run function allowing the user to follow an installation procedure for accomplishing the installation of the device driver onto the computer. In other words, current external back up hard drives require that a “client” be installed on the computer before the external hard drive will operate correctly.
Prior art external hard drives can be connected to the computer by use of a bus, such as a universal serial bus (USB), an IEEE 1394 bus (Firewire), or a peripheral component interconnect bus (PCI). As noted above, when the external hard drive is connected, the operating system of the computer first detects the existence of the external hard drive and then checks if the computer has already been installed with the device driver.
FIG. 1 illustrates an example of how an external hard drive 14 is installed to a computer system 21 in a traditional way. First, the user connects the external hard drive to the USB (or other bus) adapter 24 of the computer 21. The USB adapter 24 issues a signal to the computer indicating that an external hard drive is currently connected to the computer. The USB adapter 24 issues an interrupt signal to the computer 21.
Next, when the computer 21 receives the interrupt signal, it collects the USB installation information from the I/O ports of the USB adapter 24, and if the external hard drive is new, then it issues an inquiry command to the USB adapter 24. Then, the USB adapter 24 issues an inquiry command to the external hard drive using the USB communication protocol, and the external hard drive 14 returns, as depicted in FIG. 1, a value indicating it is an external disk drive. Since a disk device is a piece of fundamental peripheral equipment of any computer system, the host operating system 23 simply takes the added external disk drive 14 as a general storage device.
However, it should be noted that the user typically has to manually install a software program such as volume management software to the computer 21 for the control of the added disk drive.
Traditionally, each external hard drive has associated therewith a detached storage disk (such as a CD-ROM or floppy disk) that stores the device driver and the instructions for its installation. It is not uncommon for external hard drives to be moved from computer system to computer system. Each time the external hard drive is moved, the user must have the storage disk with the driver information. The storage disk may be lost, or worse yet, a wrong driver may be installed. The installation of a wrong device driver may jeopardize the computer system operation.
In other words, the traditional method of using a storage disk to store the device driver and its installation program makes the installation and/or re-installation of a device driver problematical. Accordingly, there exists a need for an easy installation system and product for connecting an external hard drive to computer systems with minimum human intervention and no downloading from a storage disk.
In the drawings, identical reference numbers identify identical or substantially similar elements or acts. To easily identify the discussion of any particular element or act, the most significant digit or digits in a reference number refer to the Figure number in which that element is first introduced (e.g., element 1104 is first introduced and discussed with respect to FIG. 11)